Religious belief is determined by a person's genetic make-up according to a study by a leading scientist.

After comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples, an American molecular geneticist has concluded that a person's capacity to believe in God is linked to brain chemicals.

His findings were criticised last night by leading clerics, who challenge the existence of a "god gene" and say that the research undermines a fundamental tenet of faith - that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through divine transformation rather than the brain's electrical impulses.

Dr Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Cancer Institute in America, asked volunteers 226 questions in order to determine how spiritually connected they felt to the universe. The higher their score, the greater a person's ability to believe in a greater spiritual force and, Dr Hamer found, the more likely they were to share the gene, VMAT2.

Studies on twins showed that those with this gene, a vesicular monoamine transporter that regulates the flow of mood-altering chemicals in the brain, were more likely to develop a spiritual belief.

Growing up in a religious environment was said to have little effect on belief. Dr Hamer, who in 1993 claimed to have identified a DNA sequence linked to male homosexuality, said the existence of the "god gene" explained why some people had more aptitude for spirituality than others.

"Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus all shared a series of mystical experiences or alterations in consciousness and thus probably carried the gene," he said. "This means that the tendency to be spiritual is part of genetic make-up. This is not a thing that is strictly handed down from parents to children. It could skip a generation - it's like intelligence."

His findings, published in a book, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hard-Wired Into Our Genes, were greeted sceptically by many in the religious establishment.

The Rev Dr John Polkinghorne, a fellow of the Royal Society and a Canon Theologian at Liverpool Cathedral, said: "The idea of a god gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking."

The Rev Dr Walter Houston, the chaplain of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a fellow in theology, said: "Religious belief is not just related to a person's constitution; it's related to society, tradition, character - everything's involved. Having a gene that could do all that seems pretty unlikely to me."

Dr Hamer insisted, however, that his research was not antithetical to a belief in God. He pointed out: "Religious believers can point to the existence of god genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity - a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence."

"..(1) From Dr. Dean Hamer, the "gay gene" researcher, and himself a gay man:

"Genes are hardware...the data of life's experiences are processed through the sexual software into the circuits of identity. I suspect the sexual software is a mixture of both genes and environment, in much the same way the software of a computer is a mixture of what's installed at the factory and what's added by the user." .."

Oh, brother. One more kooky theory from the same guy who brought us the gay gene. I think he's got some kind of gene that gives him a stubborn ability to come to bizarre conclusions based on flimsy evidence. He needs a transfusion of common sense.

I love how these "scientists" love to talk conclusively about CORRELATIONS. And, their correlations are often arrived at through shoddy, incredibly misleading statistical analyses to boot. There is no causation in this science. There is no control. Yet, its treated as though it were conclusive.

20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

So much for the "God" gene. He is built into every one of us.

29
posted on 11/13/2004 7:58:06 PM PST
by mombonn
( íViva Bush/Cheney! Dukakis and Kerry are the matching bookends of the Bush era.)

ROFL More lunacy from the Left. They're bound and determined to make Homosexuality legitimate orientation rather than choice. Like that evasive "Missing Link," they'll never find it because it isn't there.

There were many studies conducted in the 1960's (before IRB oversight, by the way) which used classical conditioning methods to successfully turn gay men straight. I won't go into details but think induced vomiting. And, these were studies that demonstrated scientific control.

Dr. Dean Hamer was born in Montclair, N.J. He received his B.A. from Trinity College, Connecticut and his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School . He has worked at the National Institutes of Health for 24 years, where he is currently the Chief of the Section on Gene Structure and Regulation in the Laboratory of Biochemistry of the National Cancer Institute.

Not everyone chooses the path of least resistance. People have died for causes for thousands of years when it would have been easier to choose an easier lifestyle. That said, not all hard paths are equal. Nor do they lead to the same place...

Indeed there may be a religious gene, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His son...and those He predestined He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified He also glorified." Romans 8:29-30

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